Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/199

 CAUSES OF THE DEFEAT. 167 To stale anything like positive numbers of slain or prisonersj, is impossible. According to Arrian, 300,000 Persians were slain, and many more taken prisoners. Diodorus puts the slain at 90,000, Curtius at 40,000. The Macedonian killed were, accord- ing to Arrian, not more than 100 — according to Curtius, 300 : Diodorus states the slain at 500, besides a great number of wounded.2 The estimate of Arrian is obviously too great on one side, and too small on the other ; but whatever may be the nu- merical truth, it is certain that the prodigious army of Darius was all either killed, taken, or dispersed, at the battle of Arbela. No attempt to form a subsequent army ever succeeded ; Ave read of nothing stronger than divisions or detachments. The miscel- laneous contingents of this once mighty empire, such at least among them as survived, dispersed to their respective homes and could never be again mustered in mass. The defeat of Arbela was in fact the death blow of the Persian empire. It converted Alexander into the Great King, and Da- rius into nothing better than a fugitive pretender. Among all the causes of the defeat — here as at Issus — the most prominent and indisputable was the cowardice of Darius himself. Under a king deficient not merely in the virtues of a general, but even in those of a private soldier, and who nevertheless insisted on command- ing in person — nothing short of ruin could ensue. To those brave Persians whom he dragged into ruin along with him and who knew the real^facts, he must have appeared as the betrayer of the empire. We shall have to recall this state of sentiment, when we describe hereafter the conspiracy formed by the Baktrian sa- trap Bessus. Nevertheless, even if Darius had behaved with un- impeachable courage, there is little reason to believe, that the de- feat of Arbela, much less that of Issus, could have been converted into a victory. Mere immensity of number, even with immensity of space, was of no efficacy without skiU as well as bravery in the commander. Three-fourths of the Persian army were mere spec- tators, who did nothing, and produced absolutely no effect. The flank movement against Alexander's right, instead of being made b)^ some unemployed division, was so caiTied into effect, as to dis- tract the Baktrian troops from their place in the front line, and ' Arrian, iii. 15, 16 ; Curtius, iv. 16, 27, Diodor. xvii. 61.